SHANE PRIGMORE

Time to Teach....again

2012-01-27T18:25:00.000-08:00

I very rarely have time to teach, but I love doing it. So this year I have made it my resolution to go out and teach again. First up is an in depth lecture on design,development,and visual storytelling at the Art Institute of California Inland Empire (My home town). See the flier above for details. Maybe I'll see you there.

A little itch.....

2012-01-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

One afternoon a couple years ago I got an itch and sculpted this little guy. A little stress reliever. You may see more elaborate sculpting attempts here in the future.

Have a good one

2011-12-23T17:16:00.001-08:00

HALLOWEEN Cal Arts Workshop (Prt 2)

2011-10-31T07:59:00.001-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Here is one of the "Al Hirschfeld" style Vampires I created as part of the Cal Arts Halloween inspired Character design workshop that Shannon Tindle and myself conducted last year around this time. Read and see more about it in my previous post (below).

HALLOWEEN Cal Arts workshop (prt 1)

2011-10-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

Last year around this time,Shannon Tindle and myself taught a character design workshop at Cal Arts. It being the Halloween season, the assignment we gave the students was to design a vampire in several different styles: One in the Style of Ronald Searle, One in the style of Al Hirschfeild, One in the style of Shrek, and one in whatever style they wished. As usual Shannon and myself tackled the assignment as well. Below are my "Searle" vampires from that workshop. (I couldn't do just one.) More to come.

SPACEHEADZ BOOK #3 IS HERE!

2011-09-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

....In which everything changes. I love this story. Read and enjoy. Catch up on more of the SPHDZ action HERE!

SPHDZ PHOTOS!!!

2011-03-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from the SPHDZ LA tour with Jon Scieszka, Casey Scieska, Steven Weinberg and myself(I'm in the plaid shirt). SO COOL! Very exciting. Some kids even dressed up like the characters. A bunch of kids drew there own SPHDZ art work. It was SPHDZ crazy.

UPDATED SPACEHEADZ EVENTS FOR MARCH!!!

2011-01-29T10:14:00.000-08:00

Here are the updated dates, times, and places, for the Spaceheadz events and signings for the first week in March. VERY Unfortunately my busy schedule only allows me to attend one of these events at the moment(Friday, March 4th). But very fortunately, Jon Scieszka(author/creator), Casey Scieszka, and Steven Weinberg(SPHDZ Web and media) will be present at ALL of them. They (and we on the 4th) will be talking, signing, (and I will be drawing) Spaceheadz.

March 1st
6:00PM
Signing at Barnes & Noble #2743
7881 Edinger Avenue
Huntington Beach, CA 82647
Phone: 714-897-8781

March 2nd
5:00PM
Signing at Mrs. Nelson’s Toys and Books
1030 Bonita Avenue
La Verne, CA 91750
Phone: 909-599-4558

March 3rd
4:00PM
Signing at Whale of a Tale Children's Bookshoppe
4199 Campus Dr. Suite A
Irvine, Ca. 92612
949-854-8288

March 4th
7:00 PM:
SIgning at ONCE UPON A TIME book store
2207 Honolulu Ave
Montrose, CA.91020
Phone: 818-248-9668
(I will be appearing at this one)

It's gonna be a lot of fun. I'll be posting about the school visits (not for the general public) afterwards as well. !! BE SPHDZ !!

One of my pieces for PEABODY and SHERMAN.

2011-01-24T18:47:00.000-08:00

Dreamworks announced the Peabody and Sherman feature film in this weeks issue of Entertainment Weekly, and they happened to include one of my early concept paintings of Mr. Peabody himself. Right there next to Robert Downey Jr. (the voice of the smartest dog on earth).

Peabody and Sherman was actually the first project I came to Dreamworks to help develop. There is much more development work by some very talented artists that I'm sure you'll be seeing in an art of Peabody and Sherman book sometime soon. The original 1960s concept of the worlds smartest dog, his boy, and a TIME MACHINE made this film so much fun to explore and play with!
(The image on the top left is a still from the original TV show.)

SPACEHEADZ!! BOOK #2 is HERE!!!!

2010-12-21T07:13:00.000-08:00

Spaceheadz book #2 is now here and available in bookstores and on-line EVERYWHERE! The 2nd novel in the series written by the amazing Jon Scieszka (and illustrated by...myself) follows the continuing adventures of Bob, Jennifer, Major fluffy, Michael K., and Agent Umber. This book has more agents, More tentacles, pudding rage, energy wave freak outs, monarch butterflies, monkey suits, Kilroy references, bathroom emergencies, A wolf, donuts, sewer pipes, more dogs, more whales, fried chicken, and an oddly cloaked Kindergarten class thrown into the mix. Very, very fun! Book 2 is Packed with all new illustrations (almost twice book #1). MUCH more elaborate. Check it out! Have fun! Above is a tiny mish-mash teaser sample of just a couple of my illustrations from book #2

ME and my SHADOW

2010-12-19T11:15:00.000-08:00

A quick (but late) update. The film I have been working on for the past year was recently announced by Dreamworks. It is entitled "ME and MY SHADOW". It is a computer animation/traditional animation hybrid about a fun shadow that is stuck with a boring guy. The shadows in the film are all traditionally (hand drawn)animated. The team on this film is absolutely incredible and we have all been cranking to make something really special. I am proud to be the head of story on Me and My Shadow. I am working with Mark Dindal who developed the concept for the film and is our fun and fearless director. The film is scheduled to be released in March 2013.(this image is a promotional photo for the film "Shadow of a doubt". Not our film.)

MOONSHINE and MEGAMIND:

2010-10-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

Two Dreamworks Art books were released this month, and I happen to have artwork in both of them.

MOONSHINE is a compilation of personal artwork from the Dreamworks Visual development artists. Pretty Awesome. I have a fun little spread in there. The ART of MEGAMIND was released as well. A slew of my early development work appears in the book. Below are some examples.

Now on page 57 of the Art of Magamind book, there is a series of color Roxanne expressions that are all credited to me. But in fact I am only responsible for the girl in the gray tank top with the sunglasses on her head. Shannon Tindle did all the others. Mis-credits happen in every art of book, so Its good we have blogs.

SPACEHEADZ!! Book#1: Ready for Humans!

2010-06-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

FRESH SCENT! LONG LASTING!
I guess I am officially a Children's Book Illustrator. Spaceheads book#1 is now available for sale online and in book stores everywhere! If you ever wondered why I never have time to update my blog, here it is. This was one heck of a first book to be a part of as I was lucky to work with Simon and Schuster, Jon Scieszka, and Francesco Sedita. Holy Moly! A short while back I received a call out of the blue from Dan Potash and Justin Chanda (Creative powerhouses) at Simon and Schuster asking if I would be interested in illustrating books for them. "Uhhh...Yeah." So they sent me a manuscript for a new book/novel series they had in mind entitled Spaceheadz. I absolutely loved it! The story, the characters, the pop culture craziness, the pace and flow was incredibly inventive and fun. As soon as I read chapter 5B "Fluffy Speaks" I called S&S back and told them that I had to do this series. I get to play with two completely different styles of illustration throughout these books. Each serves their purpose, but I approached the look with what I thought was right for the story,the writing, and the author's vision. Check it out, Read it, Have Fun. This is the first in a 4 book series. Books #2 through #4 are coming soon! BE SPHDZ!

(FAR TOP: Cover image for Book#1/ MIDDLE: A small, teaser, sample collage of just a few illustrations from book#1/ DIRECTLY ABOVE: My Illustration on a book store display at Barnes and Noble. To the right a kid is checkin' it all out. Neat! No, I did not know or stage the kid. But I did stage Major Fluffy the hamster on the left.)

GO SEE HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON !!!

2010-03-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

In the 3 years I've been at Dreamworks I have been lucky to witness and be part of some pretty incredible things. This film and its crew happen to be a couple of those. I am so proud of Dreamworks for How to Train Your Dragon. Directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois (Lilo and Stitch) came on in the final hour to completely re-rout this story from scratch from scratch. They collaborated with an incredible crew and the entire studio under an impossible deadline to create something that is truly awe inspiring and special.(and not just for Dreamworks.)
Chris and Dean asked me to come on board to collaborate with them and my friends Nico Marlet (lead designer/genius) and Takao Noguchi(awesome designer) to finalize the design of the main Character "Hiccup". Then a small team of us were asked to explore an entirely new Dragon and main character "Toothless the Night Fury".(Below are a couple of my pieces that appear in the art of book.) The environment was always open and collaborative. A couple character thoughts I suggested even made it to the screen in all of this. My contributions were definitely a speck in the big scheme of Dragons, So read the credits in the theater and give that amazing crew a round of applause. They've earned it. Dreamworks takes a lot of flack about their films both story wise and look wise, and sure, some of it is justified."SOME" of it. It's great that Kung Fu Panda opened some eyes, But wait, there's more. An incredibly talented team from many varied backgrounds and experiences came together to make Dragons something special. Go see it and have a blast!!!

Artwork copyright Dreamworks Animation.

I WON SOMETHING ?!!!

2010-02-08T17:47:00.001-08:00

An Annie Award for best character design in an animated feature film for Coraline! Wow! I can not believe all of the kind words and messages since the awards. Thank you so much.It means more than you know. Thank you ASIFA! And on Coraline, Thank you to the inspiring story crew, To the BRILLIANT sculptors and puppet fabricators that brought these designs to fruition, and to the absolutely genius animation team that gave these guys life. THIS TEAM WAS FEARLESS! Thanks Henry Selick!!
And I stated it at the awards, and I will say it again. It was an honor to work alongside Shannon Tindle and Dan Krall as a team on Coraline. I have to share this with them.
But this award was truly incredible and Very generous on ASIFA's part. Thank you.
And It was an honor to be nominated alongside the insanely talented Mr. Daniel Lopez Munoz (UP). Congrats to all!

ANNIE AWARD NOMINATION !

2009-12-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

I Just found out I have been nominated for an ANNIE AWARD in the category of "Character Design in a Feature Production" for my work on Coraline.....Wow!...... I am honored to be nominated alongside my good friend Shannon Tindle (Coraline), and the incredibly talented Daniel Lopez Munoz (UP).

I only wish that Mr. Dan Krall might have been nominated in some category for his incredible contributions on Coraline as well. There were so many talented people from every studio that were not nominated this year, so hats off to all of you.

and, BEST OF LUCK TO EVERYONE!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

2009-10-30T11:33:00.001-07:00

IRON GIANT 10 YEAR REUNION !!!!!

2009-10-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I was asked to take part in the Iron Giant 10th anniversary reunion on Oct. 23rd, 2009. It was amazing seeing everyone again. The Iron Giant was my first real job in feature animation. I was a kid, still in school, and Brad and the crew really took us kids under their wings. On the Panel my buddy Eddie Rosas and I talked about what it was like being rookie kids working with Brad and the crew on that amazing film. We definitely had stories (thats me in the white shirt embarrassing Brad). Working on that film changed my life. It is amazing to see how many people have come to love Giant, especially after its less than blockbuster opening weekend 10 years ago, August 6th 1999. You've come a long way Giant! SUUUUU - PER - MAAAAN.
Ryan Savas has VIDEO OF THE EVENT HERE !
(photo above from L to R: Brad Bird, Jeff Lynch, Eddie Rosas, Me.)
(photo below: all of the crew that was there!)

CORALINE is now on DVD and BLUE-RAY !

2009-07-21T20:50:00.000-07:00

Coraline was just released on DVD and Blue-Ray, So here is another (and last for a very long time , I promise) tiny sample of some of my work from the film. The Coraline and Other Mother pencil drawings are some of the first pieces I did for the film , way back in October , 2005....Before I even moved to Oregon to work in house at Laika in January , 2006. As mentioned in my previous Coraline Posts : On "CORALINE", Dan Krall , Shannon Tindle and Myself , under the direction of Mr. Henry Selick ,were responsible for the final character design in the film. I also very proudly designed and developed the Facial Animation , expressions , and dialogue for the film. Please Read my previous , in depth , Coraline blog posts for more on the making of Coraline, and the AMAZINGLY talented people involved in its creation. Enjoy...

MICHAEL JACKSON MEMORIAL 7-7-2009 , STAPLES CENTER. I WAS REALLY THERE !!!!

2009-07-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I won a golden ticket!
I was there....It was crazy.....It felt historical.

It was a genuinely reverent and heartfelt event. I will definitely never forget it. I got to be a part of pop culture history.

Michael Jackson Nerd

2009-06-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has known me longer than a day knows I am a Michael Jackson nerd. Specificaly about his work from 1968 to 1987. I am a product of the 80's and remember Motown 25 and the premiere of Thriller fondly. You're not going to see me on Hollywood Blvd crying over his star or anything,(I will gladly attend a very exclusive, organized , historiacl memorial you can only attend if you happen to be one of 8,000 people out of 1,700,000 chosen at random.),but I have always had a great admiration for his craft , passion and work as an entertainer. In a world filled with kids who want and expect everything for nothing , Michael Jackson is the constant reminder of working on , researching and honing ones craft.

Why will no one in entertainment ever match what Michael has done ? This is why: No one in entertainment history has ever or will ever work harder and learn more about their craft than MJ did. When he was 10 years old MJ studied other performers, broke down their process and art , and perfected it! As he grew he started looking outside of his own craft and started to study and incorporate all art. He studied the sculpture of Michaelangelo for the design of a pose. He studied Charlie Chaplin , Buster Keaton , and the great mime Marcel Marseau for the design of movement and silhouette. He studied Gene Kelly and Fred Astair Dance routines relentlessly , getting to the essence of their performances. The reason MJ wore short tight pants and thick bright socks (Motown 25 , Thriller , Beat it) Is because Gene Kelly did that to create a clear silhouette and make the feet the focus of the performance. You can track these bright socks like anchor points for the movement.
Jackson studied Indian Dance , the movement of sports athletes , Sword play and fencing , He studied animation for movement. Michael searched out the best street dancers , found them, and learned most of his moves (Moonwalk , Hits , Glides, etc...) from Bugaloo Shrimp , POPPIN TACO , Poppin Pete, Shabadoo, Sugar Pop , Hugo Huizar , and all the Electric Boogaloos out here in California. That is straight from Kid Flash(Pete Gomez)who was part of it all. Taco and Poppin Pete are seen leaning on either side of MJ in smooth criminal(Moonwalker), and are the first two pop locking prisoners MJ frees from their pillar prisons in Captain EO. AMAZING! AND so much more. THEN MICHAEL APPLIED EVERYTHING HE LEARNED AND HONED IT WITH HARD WORK and tireless experimentation !
It is so easy to brush off accomplishment , craft , and passion like that with all the weird stuff surrounding Michael Jackson. And yes I think it is really weird and sad too. But , man that guy was talented. He knew entertainment like nobodies business.

I was at Disneyland on Thursday , June 25th 2009. I was eating a Dole whip in front of the Tiki Room when someone in the crowd started talking about it. I had to interrupt the person and inquire. The person said: "yeah I just got a text about it." I said "What? Come on." Then other people started getting phone calls and texts. More murmers. Then the guy I asked pulled up a news web page on his phone : " MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD". WHAT ? Now everyone was talking about it. Friends were calling me. Then from all over Disneyland you started to hear people yelling: " Michael Jackson Died!!!"Everyone was talking to everyone else about it. "They need to bring back Captain EO in remembrance"... some woman said.
Then a couple hours later I was sitting in Tomorrowland (home of Captain EO) , when Suddenly the Tomorrowland stage starts to rise and a very distinctive beat starts playing: "So you wanta be startin' somethin' , got to be startin' Somethin'"... People started cheering and running towards the stage. It was NUTS!! Everyone was dancing . Then immediately after that they played Thriller! By this time people were just mobbing the area . It was so surreal.
So here are some MJ doodles....Quick impressions of some of my favorite MJ moments over the years. HEEEE HEEEEEEE ! WHOOOOOOOOO!

CORALINE FACIAL ANIMATION !

2009-03-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

After having been a Principal Character Designer on Coraline(see previous post), Henry Selick, knowing I was also an animator, asked me if I might Design , Develop and Test all of the Facial Animation (Expressions, Mouth shapes, Dialogue,Teeth) for every character in the film. How they will emote, and talk and hold their mouths and move their brows from every angle. I WAS ECSTATIC!! I did thousands of drawings designing the MASSIVE library of mouth shapes and expressions, and a SLEW of traditional animation dialogue tests to make sure everything worked just right. Henry wanted something special and I took this task very seriously. I am a huge stop motion fan , so to be involved in this part of the process after having designed many of these guys was a dream come true. My drawings and tests for each character were then translated into 3D and the best stop motion team in the world took what I did and went to town. THEY ARE BRILLIANT ! Here is a VERY , VERY , TINY sample of just some of my facial animation design work.

CORALINE IS IN THEATRES NOW!!!!!

2009-02-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

GO SEE IT. THERE IS NOTHING LIKE IT! I am so proud to have been a part of this film and a part of the incredible crew! Below is a tiny sample of just a few of my contributions to Coraline. Thank you to everyone who came to the Coraline panel at GALLERY NUCLEUS to see us all talk about and show our art (some shown below). We were overwhelmed by the turn out and the amazing response. THANK YOU SO MUCH. And a big thanks to Laika for letting this all happen. Read more about Coraline in my previous post,and check these talented fools out: Shannon Tindle , Dan Krall , Chris Appelhans , Jon Klassen , Damon Bard. NOW EVERYONE GO SEE CORALINE!!!!
All materials copyright Laika/Shane Prigmore 2009

CORALINE OPENS FEBRUARY 6th!!!!!!

2009-01-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

I will post art soon , but first things first...FRIDAY FEBRUARY 6th- CORALINE OPENS IN THEATERS EVERYWHERE! Back in 2006 Henry Selick invited a group of us to join the team that would Create LAIKA Studio's first feature film , CORALINE.We Immediately knew this was special. The film and the studio took risks! The team Henry compiled was not to be believed , and I was honored to be a part of it. Shannon Tindle , Dan Krall, and Myself , would be responsible for the FINAL CHARACTER DESIGN in the film. (Kent Melton and Chris Butler had much to do with the final stages of Other Mother as well). After having designed so many of the characters in the film, I was then asked by Henry to continue to design and develop the Facial Animation (expressions and dialogue) for the head replacements of every character in the film, even producing many 2D animation tests along the way. The BEST stop motion team in history took what I did and went to town! (Below are some I worked with closely)More of the Coraline team I worked with closely,(most of who's work sadly can not be seen in any book) include...
-VIS DEV :Dan Krall, Shannon Tindle, Chris Appelhans, Jon Klassen, Andy Schuhler, Stef Choi
-SCULPTORS : Kent Melton, Damon Bard, Leo Rijn, Tony Merrithew, Scott Foster
-STORY: Chris Butler, Andy Schuhler, Vera Brosgol, Graham Annable, Mike Cachuela , Ovi Nedelcu
-MODEL BUILDERS: Mike Murnane , Charlie Daniels , Fon Davis
-PUPPET FABRICATION: Georgina Hayns, Jill Ahllstrand
-ANIMATION: Anthony Scott , Trey Thomas....AND MANY MORE!!!!!!!!GALLERY NUCLEUS in L.A. has a CORALINE PANEL DISCUSSION planned. And apparently the CARTOON ART MUSEUM in San Francisco is having a CORALINE EXHIBITIONshowing a lot of the art department's work along with Puppets and Sets. So that's rad. Bottom line: Coraline is an incredible achievement on so many levels. This is the kind of film most people (especially in animation) say they want to see more of (or at least work on)- A more adult, edgier, unconventional animated film. Coraline follows no convention. Henry has created a new fairy tale film language. We need films like this to succeed, because I for one want to work on more like them, and so studios like LAIKA can CONTINUE TO TAKE RISKS. So please people! GO SEE CORALINE FEBRUARY 6th !!!!!

COLORING BOOK PROJECT

2008-09-08T11:32:00.001-07:00

I was recently invited to take part in a very cool project created by Margaret Wuller and Rachel Tiep-Daniels (Two very talented artists here at Dreamworks). It is called the Picture Book Project , a Coloring Book illustrated by professional artists to benefit orphaned children in Ghana, Africa and Tijuana, Mexico. Once published , copies of the coloring books will be given to the children , and book sale proceeds will be donated to the Corazon de Vida Foundation and save widows and Orphans Development Center. The theme was - Circus Freaks, Crazy Creatures, Imaginary lands, and monsters. We were asked to create a line version, and then a colored version of our lined version for the book as well. This is my contribution. I just did something I would want to color when I was a kid.

CORALINE

2008-08-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to be a part of Henry Selick's next stop motion Film , CORALINE. I was a Principle Character Designer on the film along with Shannon Tindle and Dan Krall. I also did most of the animation pre-vis and design for the expressions, dialogue animation, and head replacements. Now some footage and "making of" material from the film can be seen on rottentomatoes.com. A few of the puppets were even on display at Comic-con this year which is pretty cool. Its exciting to see this stuff come to fruition. The crew on this film (Puppet builders , sculptors, story and development artists, set builders, animators , camera people etc..) is not to be believed! The best stop motion crew in history is all over this film! Ridiculous ! I could not be more proud to be part of THIS FILM.

BEN BALISTRERI puts a fire under everyones butt!

2008-07-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

Well, Get ready to feel lazy and inadequate because BEN BALISTRERI'S SEAWEED #1 is ready to be seen , gawked at , and BOUGHT! There is absolutely nothing out there I can compare this book to other than FRANQUIN at his height, BUT EVEN THAT doesn't describe the unique storytelling , entertainment value , humor and THOUGHT put into this book. AND THE 24 PAGE SKETCHBOOK SECTION IS INSANE!!! I could not be more proud to recommend something more highly. I was lucky enough to be classmates with Ben , and are finaly working together at Dreamworks where he is tearin'it up. He is one of the greatest guys you can imagine and I think his talent speaks for it self. All I can say is , buy this now ! There is nothing more worthy of your hard earned dollar, Book wise! The bar has just been raised for self published books. Thanks Ben , Now halfway doesn't cut it any more! I'm starting over!

"INDIANA JONES and the punch in the gut"

2008-05-23T17:58:00.000-07:00

My heart hurts. I have not posted in a while because I've been ridiculously busy. No really, REALLY!. WHAAAAA! I know, but I have been preparing for a move and everything I have been working on (including my own projects) I can not post, so I will try to squeeze in some new pieces more regularly. Now, back to crying in my pillow.

JONES!!!

2008-02-20T23:06:00.000-08:00

Man I hope the movie does not suck! I need every piece of Indy Merchandise they throw at me. Here is an action pose I had to get out of my system along with one of my tiny gesture scribbles. I used the colors as they appear on film at the begining of Raiders, the Jacket is just darker(Same for Temple),It just feels right. You will be seeing more Indy on this blog for sure.

Brother and Sister

2008-01-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR! This is a piece for a project I was working on early last year with Ben Balistreri and Shannon Tindle. We abandoned the project for a better Idea.

QUICK SANTA STUDY

2007-12-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everybody! This is a very quick, unfinished study of Santa with his list bearing elf (I just thought he would have one).I also wanted to try something new with a christmas elf and make him look more mythological in contrast to a human Santa. I'm not sure what the story could be here because it was just a fast flow of consciousness piece done last night. I really love Christmas and holiday art and wanted to do something fun. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

SEARLE ASSIGNMENT

2007-12-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

So all the development artists at Dreamworks have been teaching a character design workshop at the studio. The latest assignment we gave the class was to start designing on three films as animated features-Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian,and the Three Musketeers, and the restriction is that it all has to be done in the style of RONALD SEARLE! Whenever we give an assignment we do it as well, So here's my Conan done in mid sixties Searle style.

(And more Holiday art is on the way.)

A HARVEST MOON ON HALLOWEEN

2007-10-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Last night I wanted to do a little piece that felt like fall AND Halloween. So here.

FINALY A VACATION!!

2007-10-13T22:09:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks I have been on my first vacation in about six years. It was all sparked off in Kentucky with the wedding of my friends Shannon and Megan. It was awsome. Then since we were on that side of the country I figured we would go nerd out at Disney World- An entire city designed and aranged by many of my favorite artists- Herb Ryman , Marc Davis, Sam McKim ,Claud Coats, Rolly Crump, Mary Blair , etc... Below Are some pictures of the Contemporary Resort where we stayed for part of the trip. The amazing mosaic in the hotels' atrium was designed by Mary Blair. It is a masterwork of pattern and proportion. Mary placed one five legged goat into the mosaic because in native american culture the gods had to make at least on thing imperfect so that they would be the only ones that were truly perfect. Pretty cool.

Earlier while in Kentucky I had to stop by the Louisville Slugger Museum and factory. A)- Me in front of the biggest bat in the world. B)-The inside of the museum with me admiring a Mickey Mantle bat. C)- One of Babe Ruth's bats from his 1927 season where he hit 60 home runs! He hit 21 with this bat and placed a notch around the slugger logo for every one. D)- I got to knock the crap out of some balls using exact replicas of Babe Ruth , Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jrs' bats.

color key and screen grabs from GILROY

2007-09-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

So here are a few more images from Project Gilroy. The school was layed out By Chris Tsirigotis and painted by RD. We have a few X-ray scenes that play a part in the story. The house and barn is a small digital color key painted by RD. Go to SHANNONTINDLE.BLOGSPOT.COM to see more!

FROM THE SET OF GILROY

2007-08-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

ALright, Here are a couple screen grabs from GILROY, our recently completed pilot for Cartoon Network. I will be posting a couple images every week. GO TO SHANNON TINDLE'S BLOG TO SEE MORE. Thank you so much to everyone that came to our premiere screening, and thank you for the incredibly kind feed back afterwards. The crowd overflowed out into the lobby and I think it was a good sign that even those people were laughing and cheering. I want to thank some of the amazing people that helped us out on Gilroy- Chris Tsirgiotis for our beautiful layouts, R.D.for our beautiful BG paintings, Dave Lee on FX on props, Ilya and Greg our editors, Roger for our character color, Hacienda Post for our amazing sound ,and Jackie Buscarino and Shaun Hamid for keeping everything organized. And a huge thank you to my coharts in all of this -Shannon Tindle and Andy Schuhler.

GILROY

2007-08-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

So, 3.5 years after we pitched the thing we finaly got to make it. Well half of it. The last half is full brilliant color animation (because that's all they would allow us budget wise), and the first half is a very, very fleshed out animatic. The 22 minute Pilot is a wrap for now and is screening for our peers at Cartoon Network on Friday. If you didn't know , I along with my friends Andy Schuhler and Shannon Tindle created a pilot for Cartoon network which we finally started full production on (in our spare time) in mid October 2006. Our goal was to bring some feature sensabilities to an animated tv show in story , tone , pace and visual language. Oh and to make it entertaining as hell. We just wanted to make something that we would have an absolute ball working on. Cartoon Network let us do it and people tell us we did alright. Will you ever see it? WHO KNOWS! Keep posted. So this is a poster I cranked out last night for the screening. And if you look down 6 posts ago you can see a few special poses I did for our show.

BASEBALL

2007-06-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

I played baseball intensively from the time I was seven years old all the way through highschool. I've been getting nastalgic about it lately , so I did these pieces.

The batter above is just entering the batting circle to warm up as he gives the current batter a motivational clap. That's what My old highschool uniform looked like.

I gave this guy a 1960's Yankee uniform. Batters looked cooler without helmets. I love this moment just as the ball is leaving the pitchers hand, and even as the batter shifts his weight to antic he is still judging to see if the pitch is going to be hitable. It all happens so fast.

Jackie Robinson (above) had a great stockey build. He was springy but heavy. I always loved his 1960's Dodger uniform.

SKETCHING AT 600 MILES PER HOUR

2007-05-29T00:34:00.001-07:00

So Ben Balistreri planned a trip to the Chino Air show last weekend and said we were going to look at cool planes and eat like kings. I brought my sketch pad and attempted to sketch planes as they were taxiing, taking off, flying , and landing. The show was awsome. At one point there were 26 World War 2 planes (Including Japanese Zeros) all in the air at the same time. It was an insane sketching challenge. I never had time to look down at my paper so these sketches are as raw as they come. Doing a blind sketch of an F18 flying bye at 600 miles per hour will loosen you up real quick!

OH MY ZOD!!!

2007-04-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

OK, I love drawing Superman. I have ever since I could hold a pencil.I was inspired to do this piece after recently watching the Donner cut of Superman 2. Which I actually did think was stronger in a lot of ways than the original non-Donner version . Ok , except for the turning back time thing at the end damnit.The first two movies were so rad ,and Christopher Reeve is such an amazing Superman. I tottaly believed him as that character when I was a kid. I also like Alex Ross's Superman , where he looks like an older burly man. Whatever , Expect to see more Superman pieces on this blog in the near future. I'm a nerd.

CAL ARTS ASSIGNMENT

2007-03-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

Last week me and my friend Shannon Tindle were invited to come to CAl Arts to give a lecture on development and design. We gave the kids the assignment to design Ebeneezer Scrooge , Jacob Marley , and Tiny Tim based on Dickens description of those characters from the book "A Christams Carol". To give the students some more insentive to do the assignment WE did the assignment ourselves (along with a few other profesionals-Ben Balistreri , Devin Crane , Dave Pimentel, and Aurion Redson.) It was due yesterday and the students tore it up ! Even a few alumni did the assignment and made a surprise visit. The outcome and presentaions were really inspiring. There is a cynergy and excitment at that place that is pretty incredible.Those kids are hungry and talented! So here are the Marley and Scrooge designs I did for class.

CHARACTER DESIGN INTERVIEW.

2007-03-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Go to www.characterdesign.blogspot.com , or go to my links and click on "CHARACTER DESIGN BLOG" to check out an interview I just did for Randall Sly's character design blog . There are a bunch of pieces that you have not seen on my blog as well. This is one of the pieces on the character design blog . Its another page of warm up doodles I do before I work on the Cintiq at home.

WHY I NEVER POST

2007-02-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

I am really ,really busy. Just after Thanksgiving I started fulltime at Dreamworks Feature Animation. Me and my friend Shannon are developing the Peabody and Sherman feature film from the ground up. Rob Minkoff (the director) brought us on to be the very first artists involved with the film. We're doing everything from character design to story. If you know anything about Peabody and Sherman you know that it is about time travel, and it has been one of my dreams to work on a time travel film. AWESOME! It's so fun.
So on top of that (in my non-existant spare time) me and my buddies have been trying to wrap up our 22 minute short for Cartoon Network. Over the past two months I have been feverishly drawing and numbering and yelling to be able to get everything shipped to the Rough Draft team to start animation. Below is a tiny, tiny sample of the HUNDREDS of special poses, charts, and expressions I have done over the past few weeks. I don't sleep any more.

Happy Holidays

2006-12-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays everyone. I apologize for the lack of posts but I am doing three jobs at once right now. But one quick update on our Cartoon Network short... We just recorded all our voices... Gary Cole (the boss in Office Space) , Illeana Douglas (Good Fellas) , Tony Plana ( Ugly Betty, Three Amigos), Kevin Michael Richardson (Lilo and Stich and much more). And a crazy 8 year old named Zack. It was unbelievable working with all of these incredibly talented actors. Have a great Holiday everyone!

"Gobble , Gobble"

2006-11-20T09:33:00.000-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!! I had to draw this last night to try and get in the holiday mood because it is 90 degrees in L.A.! What the F !

I Love fall

2006-10-30T14:59:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! I'll have updates on our projects as soon as I have time to breath. Have a rad Halloween everyone!

Back in LA

2006-10-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I just moved back to LA to start production on a couple of projects that my friends and I have created. I'm finally in an office getting paid to MAKE OUR OWN STUFF!! I'll be posting more often now that I'm getting settled , and I'll give little updates on the projects as we go. ( see the GILROY post a couple weeks ago) Its good to be back.

Curious Old People

2006-10-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple designs I did for the CURIOUS GEORGE movie. The old man in color was based on on an elderly Richard Harris (if he was wearing Ollie Johnstons' sweater). And the one underneath him is what would happen if Dick Van Dyke and Jerry Goldsmith had a baby.

Warm up Doodles

2006-10-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

When I'm working on the cintiq I usually draw alot of random crap to warm up.

A hell of a first blog week

2006-09-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

Thank you again to Amid , Ovi , Ben , and Cartoon Brew for the incredible Kick off to my premiere blog week .That was a very unexpected surprise.And thank you to anyone who gives a turd about this stuff. And stay tuned, there is MUCH more on the way. Oh, I drew this while I was watching the Twilight Zone marathon.

Mayonaise Eater

2006-09-27T00:44:00.000-07:00

Dude , this girl tottaly eats mayonaise/cheese sandwiches.

BACK TO THE ZOO

2006-09-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

I had not been to the zoo in about 6 years , and I finaly had some free time , so this past weekend I decided to check out the Oregon Zoo. The zoo here is beautiful! I wish the LA zoo was this nicely laid out .Back at Cal Arts I was at the LA zoo almost every week for four years. I'm a little rusty now , but here are a few drawings from my weekend trip. The Chimp was like a crazy old man.

BOOM! BOOM!

2006-09-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

A design I did for Fosters. Fun stuff!

GILROY

2006-09-26T00:39:00.000-07:00

These are a couple story board images I drew for a short that we have in production at Cartoon Network. When I say "we" I am refering to my very talented friends Shannon Tindle and Andy Schuhler.

the OWL and the KING

2006-09-26T00:08:00.000-07:00

I was at the LACMA a few years back , and I came across this sculpture. I thaught it was awsome , so I drew it .

2006-09-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

TESTING !